The SOMA Food Pairing Guide

Food pairing is often made to sound complicated. With beer, it comes down to three rules, and once you know them, you can choose a good beer for almost any menu.

The three rules of food pairing

The first rule is to match the intensity of the food and the beer. Delicate food needs a delicate beer, and food with big flavours needs a beer with big flavours.

The second rule is to contrast or complement. You can cut through rich food with a crisp beer, or you can match roasted flavours in the food with roasted malt in the beer.

The third rule is about spice. Do not try to calm chilli heat with alcohol. Every SOMA beer stays under 0.5% ABV, so this rule is easy to follow.

Here is how those rules work with each SOMA beer.

What to eat with SOMA Lager

SOMA Lager, a crisp lager, is the match for delicate dishes. Try it with grilled fish, lemon butter prawns, a green salad or a simple pasta. Its crisp carbonation refreshes your palate between bites, and its gentle malt flavour never overpowers the food. It is also the beer to offer guests who say that they do not really drink beer.

What to eat with SOMA IPA

SOMA IPA, a hazy IPA, is made for food with big flavours, such as burgers, fried chicken, tacos and anything else that is rich and strongly flavoured. It is especially good with spicy food. Alcohol makes the heat of chilli feel stronger, while sweetness and body soften it. The IPA stays under 0.5% ABV, and it has plenty of sweetness and body. Try it with Andhra chilli chicken, a good Hyderabadi biryani or any Sichuan dish. The tropical hop flavours ease the heat, and the fruit flavours go well with the spices. This is the pairing we are most confident about.

What to eat with SOMA Belgian Wit

SOMA Belgian Wit is our brunch beer, and it goes with more kinds of food than any other beer we make. Its soft wheat, orange peel and coriander go well with eggs benedict, pancakes, goat cheese and bruschetta, and they do not clash with any of them. Its citrus finish also makes it the one SOMA beer that works with a lemon tart. It goes with Thai curry better than any of our other beers, too. The spice in a Thai curry is built on sweetness and body rather than on heat, and the wit has both.

What to eat with the two SOMA stouts

SOMA Stout works by complementing the food. Its roasted malt matches anything charred or caramelised, such as steak from the grill, mushroom dishes and slow-cooked stews. It also works with dessert. Chocolate cake with a roasty stout is one of the great food and drink pairings, because the coffee and chocolate flavours in the beer meet the same flavours in the cake.

SOMA Caffeinated Stout, Dark Arts Espresso, complements food in the same way at a different time of day. It is brewed with cold-brew coffee, so it goes with brunch waffles, breakfast tacos and aged cheddar. It also goes with tiramisu and affogato, where the coffee in the beer meets the coffee in the dessert. It suits a late-night seekh kebab or biryani as well. It is the only SOMA that contains caffeine, so choose it on an evening when you plan to stay up late.

Here is one more useful number. A 500ml can of SOMA has an indicative 63 to 99 calories, depending on the beer. These figures are calculated from the recipe and have not been lab-tested yet.

Choose the SOMA that suits your meal, and enjoy your dinner.